Another Day in Norway where our Trusty Traveller finds Tromsø, Trolls and Totally misses Aurora....

Tromsø - the most northern city on the planet... Its quite a pretty little town with lots of wood fronted shops, but of course like everywhere like this, it is just one big tourist hive and every shop is selling 'indigenous' gifts- didthe Sami make aurora themed mugs and fridge magnets?

Nearest I'll get a polar bear (i hope)

Although I have to say I did like the big stuffed polar bear and black bear and I am presuming that these are either not real (unlikely) or culled as they sometimes have to be. But most of the stuff is just northern lights tat or Troll tat.

Peer Gynt.. famous worldover

To be fair the best bit of Tromsø for me was the Troll Museum! We went to the art gallery which was quite interesting (see instagram account) but not astounding, but I always like to look at the local art. We had a mooch around town in the snow and then we went to find the Trolls.

This museum was absolutely crazy daft... it was totally dedicated to Trolls and the fairy tales and legends told about them which are very important to Norwegian Culture. It was extremly well presented with a lot of interactive opportunities.

this is apparently a Dr Fred Troll😂

The stories were well told in Norwegian and English - and of course there was every concievable Troll possible.

Trolls come and all shapes and sizes and can live for a very long time, sometimes hundreds of years, sometimes even so long that moss grows upon them and sometimes they even forget how old they actually are!!!

This Troll was very sad because he couldn't rememmber how old he was.... so i sat on his knee🤣🤣

They're not all unpleasant creatures but you really wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of a Troll and some of them are nasty - but most of them are just mischievous and can be dealt with.

Boy Trolls.... I'll stick with Dr Fred.

Some useful ways to deal with a Troll is lead it into sunlight and it'll turn into stone that's why a lot of the mountains are here (obviiusly) and also if you can find out a Trolls real name and to use it with him that will also turn to stone. Useful tips hey?

Girl Trolls... more dangerous than they look...

On a more serious note a lot of the guests and the two on-board astronomers did manage to spot some very faint aurora last night... and the KPI index is good so if the weather clears unlikely tonight - but forecast good for tomorrow we hopefully might get some more Aurora. Of course I was running around the ship trying to find warm clothes and drink wine so I didn't actually spot it by the time I was organized it was over🥴🤔next time I hope🙂

I will have pictures of Aurora but they will be on separate post... hopefully when I'VE actually seen it 🤣

Scotland part 2

The second half of the week continued in much the same vein. We had one rainy afternoon which was actually quite nice to be holed up in the house with the rain lashing the windows. It probably wasn't quite so nice for the two visitors that came on their bikes but they're tough cookies - and its only water- but I did feel sorry for them having to cycle six miles back down the track in the wind and rain, but given Scotland, it wasn't as bad as it could be. The big quest for the 2nd half of the week was to find some deer antiers! The chap that owned the house dropped in to visit - he was a very friendly fella and was chatting about how this was the time of year when all the Stags lost their antlers (he collected them and sold them) so after that we were on the serious lookout. It's always been Fred's mission to find some dropped antlers.... The Monro baggers continued with the mission to bag the remaining three Monros... there is discussion as whet...

Vigo

We left the ship to explore Vigo. Its a much larger place then we expected... although tbh I hadn't given ut a lot of thought. Its a real mish mash of old and new and having got a map from tourist info we decided to follow the walking trail to the Monte Castro... the highest point of the town. Most of the town was pretty much as everywhere else... lots of traffic... lots of people... one or two interesting buildings and a lot of shopping. We headed to the art gallery - this has been a year of gallery visits so we we seen o reason to change now. The Museo de Marco is housed in the towns ex prison building and its very grand. In fact, I think that on this occaision the building might have been more interesting than the art.... Although the visiting exhibition by Susanne S D Themlitz was strangely compelling. It was a huge varied collection of eclectic items... found, salavaged, manipulated and arranged in lots of ways - weirdly inspiring - and mostly enjoyable to look at...

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira. An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed. First of all the weather is really splendid. Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds.. Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm. Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs. In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill. It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town - completely over everybody's house... So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty b...

Planet Ruby Starrs

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